Chinglish, homophobia and silly sailors

‘Gays’ crack nearly causes international incident, says the Shanghai Daily

A CHINESE man nearly started an unintended fight with an overseas sailor when he greeted him in poorly chosen English words.

The man identified as Liu said: “Hi, gays” when he met the sailor on a foreign ship docked at Wusong Port this morning in Shanghai.

The sailor grabbed Liu, a worker at Wusong, and demanded an explanation and an apology. However, Liu’s English was so poor that he couldn’t find the words to express himself properly.

Fortunately, a police officer identified as Xu stepped in and explained to the sailor that Liu meant to say “Hi, guys,” according to Wusong immigration police.

Xu also told Liu that gay means homosexual in English.

The two shook hands after the misunderstanding was cleared up.

We think someone needs to pull the stick out of the arse of this uptight little sailor man.

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Comments (7) [rss]

Would

"Hello sailor!"

have been acceptable?


..were they seen in Shanghai Studio later?

I think it is understandable that he was a little sensitive about being called gay, given he has probably been at sea for 6 months without female company and therefore like a "yoghurt truck about to overturn", ie hanging out for a good shag.

user-pic

Methinks he doth protest too much. :-)

Should someone teach the Chinese to say "hallo semen!"?

Understandable that he would be a violent homophobe without an understanding of language barriers and accents? Please Dextrum.

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